


hope like fire

by Siria



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s04e08 Time of Death, F/M, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 04:55:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2137758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sorry," Derek murmured as he pulled the covers back over him. "I didn't mean to wake you."</p>
<p>Episode tag for 4.08.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hope like fire

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Cate for betaing!

"Sorry," Derek murmured as he pulled the covers back over him. "I didn't mean to wake you."

The change may not have taken Derek's stealth along with his speed, but the involuntary hiss he'd let out when getting into bed had been enough to wake Braeden. She curled onto her side and watched how Derek lowered himself the rest of the way onto the mattress by slow degrees, careful of jarring his injured side. "I'm okay," she said. "Are you?"

The look he shot her out of the corner of his eye was equal parts wary and amused. That question, Braeden realised, was a pretty sweeping one where Derek was concerned—and he didn't owe her any of the weak parts of himself. Still. "I've got some Ibuprofen in my kit, if you want it."

Derek shook his head. "It's better. The bandage helped."

As pillow talk went, this wasn't exactly scintillating, but Braeden didn't mind that. Actions were preferable to words, after all. The very fact that an injured wolf—even one trapped for now in a human skin—would let her close, let her press him down against the mattress and touch him, spoke volumes. So did the way he looked at her. She liked it; liked the way his steady gaze rekindled that heat between them.

Slowly, watching him the whole time, she raised herself up on one elbow, leaned in and kissed him. The first time between them had been urgent, a hint of desperation in the way Derek had clung to her, but Braeden liked this too: the slow heat of his mouth, his hands, the scratch of his beard against her skin. The slide of his palm down her side to curve around her hip made her breath hitch. His thumb worked gentle circles into the skin there, over and over and over, against the patch of pebbled scar tissue that was memento of a job gone bad in Boise. Braeden didn't have much sensation there anymore, but Derek's touch made her shiver regardless; she relished how the heat of him seemed to sink right down into her bones, to fortify the healing wards she'd worked on herself earlier. 

"Can I?" Derek asked, voice rough, as his hand slipped from her hip, across the curve of her belly, lower. 

Braeden nodded, expecting him to push up into her, but instead Derek kicked off the covers and moved so that she was on her back and he was further down the bed. The first touch of his mouth on her made her hips buck, made her moan. "Yes," she hissed, " _there_." She was still wet from before, and her inner thighs were slick where Derek ran his hands along them, his palms warm and satisfyingly solid as he held her open. 

The build was slow and inexorable and almost unbearable, and Braeden _wanted_. She reached down and tangled her fingers in Derek's thick hair, tilting her hips towards him and glorying in his utter focus. His eyes were closed, lashes dark against his cheeks, and he made pleased little noises as he worked her, sucking and licking at her clit. He hummed when her nails scraped against his scalp, pressed closer like he couldn't get enough, like he was getting off on making her feel good. Braeden had been with people before, men and women both, who'd thought a mercenary either too likely to break or incapable of it. Derek saw her scars but didn't treat them as if they were fault lines. He was mindful of her in all the best ways and when he pushed two fingers into her and crooked them just right, Braeden gasped and came in great, rolling waves. 

Derek gentled her through it with his mouth, let her get her breath back before coaxing her on to another climax. This one was deeper, stronger, sending a quicksilver flare of heat through her veins that had her twisting against the sweat-damp sheets, crying out. When Braeden finally pushed him away, panting, too sensitive for any more, Derek sat back on his heels and licked his lips with slow deliberation. He looked more than a little smug, even with his hair a mess and his cock bobbing, hard and still untouched, against his belly. "Good?"

Braeden rolled out her shoulders and said, as nonchalant as she could manage despite her unsteady breathing, "Progress, I suppose."

The scandalised look on his face was worth it, and Braden grinned, pulling Derek up so that he was on all fours over her. He was breathtaking like this—close enough for her to see the sweat beading at his hairline, the way his throat worked when he swallowed. She held his gaze as she ran her hand down his body, curled her fingers around his cock. Derek jerked at her touch, hips working, made a helpless noise when she stroked him. Braeden realised he was shaking, fine tremors running under his skin, and abandoned all thought of teasing him. "Come on, Derek," she told him, "that's it, I've got you. It's okay."

He whined, mouth working like he wanted to say something but couldn't think what. Braeden propped herself up on her free elbow so that she could kiss him, mouth at his jawline. "You're doing so good, good boy. It's okay. I want you to come on me."

Derek swore, his arms almost failing him, but then his elbows locked and he was coming all over her, hot and wet in her hand, against her belly, her breasts. He watched her with heavy-lidded eyes when Braeden licked her hand clean, kissed her fiercely when she tugged him down to lie next to her. 

"Definitely good," she told him, and it was a little startling to see how, after everything that had happened to him, he was still capable of a smile like that—one with no guile in it. 

They lay in companionable silence for a while as the loft slowly filled with morning light, Derek's arm around her waist and their legs tangled together. Braeden felt warm and sated, and just as she thought she might sleep again, Derek cleared his throat. 

"The weapons," he said. 

"What about them?"

"You have a lot of them."

Braeden pulled back so that she could look him in the eye. "You've always known what I do for a living."

"Yeah, but…" Derek shifted, though he didn't pull away from her. "Now that I'm like this, I can be hurt. I know that. I'm not stupid. But if I make a choice to carry those, then I'm not a predator anymore, I'm a hunter, and…" His words trailed off, his fingers twitching against her hip; Braeden wondered if it was a trick of muscle memory, his body's remembrance of what it was to summon claws with ease. 

"I'm the wrong person to ask about ethics," Braeden said. 

"But?"

"No buts," she said, hitching a shoulder. "Navel-gazing never got me much. Knowing how to use a gun, that kept me fed, kept me alive."

Derek was silent for a moment, then asked softly, "What happened to you?"

She closed her eyes, and it was almost like she was back there: once more a small girl standing on the road outside her family's farmhouse. It had been a cloudy day, the promise of snow in the air, and the woman had walked soundlessly towards over the gravel. _Braeden Rogers_ , the woman had said as she crouched down, a pale blue light cupped in the palm of her hand. _Honey, you have a gift. Don't you want to learn how to use it?_

Braeden blinked the memory away. If Derek didn't owe her his secrets, then neither did she owe him hers, not yet. But she could offer him what she'd learned. No shame in being a cautionary tale if you were still around to tell it. "They made a weapon out of me. I just decided I wanted to know who I'd be aimed at."

Derek didn't answer, but he was warm when he wrapped himself around her, his fingers gentle when he ran them through her hair.


End file.
